Love Me With Your Sweet Lies [Zhongchili]

Chapter 2 - Lies Upon Lies

Lies. All of it.

Childe doesn't look back after leaving Northland Bank.

He's not angry. After all is said and done, he's succeeded in everything he came to Liyue for. The contract is complete and Liyue enters a new age of humanity, the Geo Archon's gnosis soon to be delivered to Her Majesty's hand.

He has succeeded.

He is not angry.

He feels nothing.

So he walks.

He walks across the bridge leading out of Liyue. He walks the uneven path toward the mountains. He walks until he reaches the cavern that usually houses a band of hilichurls, bow at the ready. However, today he finds the place empty, and a few bones alongside the scattered ashes of a burnt out campfire are all that remain of the abandoned camp.

With a cry, he throws his bow to the ground, ignoring the wood cracking as it clatters across stone. He summons his blades to his hands, slicing through bush and bracken. He longs for nothing but destruction, cackling gleefully as the branches snap under his blows. When he runs out of those, he turns on a nearby tree. He gouges deep into the bark, ignoring the splinters of wood he sends flying, scratching at his forearms until they're red and bleeding.

He's not angry. He's not angry. He's not angry.

He slumps to his knees, panting, wiping at the damp streaks running down his face.

He's not angry.

He's so, so stupid.

Balling his hands into fists he presses them against his eyes, gulping in tasteless air.

He's not angry. He's not upset. Not over Zhongli.

Zhongli doesn't deserve his fucking tears.

He's not upset.

He is disappointed.

He's not disappointed with Zhongli, no. Zhongli had an agreement with Her Majesty; he was quite entitled to set the pieces upon his stage as needed to achieve his desired outcome. Pulling Childe's personal feelings into the matter was tactically brilliant, keeping the focus on their personal relationship so Childe wouldn't pay attention to how Zhongli knew too much, on the way his eyes glittered like fresh cut Cor Lapis, or how an otherwise well adjusted gentleman had made it through life without bringing his wallet to a single social engagement.

It's a deep, cold disappointment in himself that runs through his veins. Childe's hands fall to his sides and he scrapes his fingers across the ground, grasping fistfulls of the earth still damp from the storm of his own making.

He let himself be manipulated, be vulnerable, of all things. He turned his back to Zhongli, let his guard down and gave his body to him, and it was nothing short of foolish; if Zhongli had had more nefarious intentions than enacting his retirement, all it would've taken was a knife to his back as he knelt naked and unarmed on Zhongli's bed and Childe would be dead.

Her Majesty might have sent him to play the fool, but that does not mean he should act it. He drags himself to his feet, his expression hardening alongside his heart.

This will not happen again.

*   *   *

Childe doesn't seek out Zhongli. Instead he hunkers down, focuses on his work at Northland Bank while he awaits the missive from Her Majesty that will finally let him leave this blasted place. He takes bets with his agents, purposefully losing so that he can take on their debt collections; time in the field obscures the memories of his nights with Zhongli behind the cloud of battle. When Ekaterina tries to tell him of an elegant man who had shown up at the bank while he was out, requesting a meeting, Childe tells her he never wants to speak to him again.